White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

by Ruby Hamad

white women. “The Indian child must be placed in school before habits of barbarous life have become fixed,” declared Estelle Reel, who served as superintendent of Indian education for the Office of Indian Affairs from 1898 to 1910, “and there he must be kept until contact with our life has taught him to abandon his savage ways and walk in the path of Christian civilization.” Reel fancied herself such an advocate for the Native American community that she gave herself her own nickname: the Big White Squ*w. Not only did she employ a slur to ingratiate herself as an honorary member of the community she was attempting to destroy, but she threw in an extra insult by alluding to her superior size. Similarly, notorious Australian missionary Annie Lock declared in 1929 that the only hope for the Aboriginal population was to remove their children and put them in service of the white population to transform them into model citizens.